Weird finds in Akihabara and Ikebukuro!

It’s a well known fact that Japan has plenty of ‘weird’ stuff, and many of those things happen to be in Tokyo. So, I decided a load of holiday photos from Akihabara and Ikebukuro would be a nice way to take you on a mini tour of some of the ‘weird’ things we found in Tokyo. Don’t worry, there will be many more to follow…

First, let’s go to Akihabara. This district of Tokyo has gained fame for being the home of otaku culture and is a treasure trove of pachinko game parlours,maid cafes and shops selling everything from electronics to anime to statues to (I’m sorry) love pillows. It’s also one of the best places for themed anime cafes, such as the Gundam cafe and Final Fantasy cafe. One of my favourite otaku chain stores in Animate, which has a big branch in Akihabara, so Oana and I began our ‘well, this is weird’ tour here.

There is also an anime series where the Japanese prefectures are handsome men…

We also found an obligatory Vocaloid statue

And questioned whether boobs actually look like that

Or that *cough*

Or whether a post with a 3D bust was entirely ethical…

There was also a magical girl show just out, so there were cardboard cut outs everywhere

There were plenty of trinket machines encouraging you to part with your 100 yen coins

But kangaroos? Really, Japan?

I also made my stupidest purchase in Animate – eau d’Attack on Titan (Jean edition). It’s only smells just good enough to be room freshener…

Speaking of Attack on Titan, that show was everywhere…

As was that flippin’ swimming anime Free! which insisted on looking camp and fabulous

There will be more anime photos to come when this blog finally reaches Osaka, but hopefully these ones have amused you in the meantime…

On our final day in Tokyo, we spent a few short hours in Ikebukuro, which is often described as the ‘girl’ version of Akihabara. Here you will find butler cafes, dojinshi stores and Sunshine City (home of Namja Town and J-World Tokyo). We didn’t have time for any of these but we managed to hunt down the KitKat Boutique (a taste test blog of some of the weirder KitKat flavours will follow) and visited Tokyu Hands, which had its own supply of weird stuff no one ever really needs…

The KitKat Boutique is surprisingly posh for somewhere that sells KitKats…

Tokyu Hands sells a range of useful products that supposedly make your eyes and mouth bigger

And a ‘big smile’ tool that I’m fairly certain does not work

And Dragonball hairgel for when you need to go Super Saiyan

Novelty takoyaki hats, as modelled by Oana

And, who knows why, dog nappies!

So, which of the above do you think is the weirdest of them all, or have you found something even weirder in Japan?

Dear lord, I swear I’m not into the fujoshi! We did watch a few guilty episodes of Free! on holiday because we gave into all the advertising… only way we could manage more than 1 episode was with lots of umeshu..

Ah, darn, pressed “post” before I’m done.
I don’t think it’s the prefectures humanized, though. I recognized one of the dudes from “Uta no Prince-sama” anime so I did some looking, and it looks like it’s just the UtaPri characters being made into the “mascots” of the prefectures or something.